From Chaos to Order

Introduction

As we saw in our previous installment of this message, God is the Creator of all things.

We addressed the topic of worldview, and we said that any theory of the origins of the universe must be submitted to three timeless truths that we can find in the first two verses of Genesis 1.

The Pre-Existence of God

The Creativity of God

And the concept of Chaos and Order

We were able to address the different understandings of the perceived chaos found in verse 2, and we stated that the darkness and the void was simply an early stage of God’s progressive creation.

God’s ordering of all things really begins in the verses that we will be coving today.

For our message, we will will be looking at the 6 days of creation along with the 7th day which is the day of rest.

Much can be said about the creation narrative in these verses. These verses could be separated into multiple messages.

For todays purposes, I want to take the passage as a whole.

I want us to notice the progressive order that God institutes, and then I want to recognize that throughout all of creation, God is building up to something.

Today we will be reading from Genesis 1:1-2:3. I recognize that this passage is long so I will not ask you to stand unless you wish to, but I do want to read this passage as a whole unit. I believe that we will benefit greatly from revisiting this familiar passage.

Genesis 1:1–2:3 KJV 1900

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day. And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

I have taken this passage as a whole because I want to trace the movement of the narrative as it was written.

For our purposes today, we will be looking at the creation narrative as a whole, but we will come back to the creation of man and woman next week as well.

I told you last week that from the creation narrative we can see how God perfectly implements His intended order into creation. Today I want to shine some light onto that order so that we can recognize more fully the beauty of God’s purposes.

Firstly, I would like for us to address 3 points in creation where God creates the SPACE for His purposes to be fulfilled.

Space Created

The first three days can be understood as days in which God is creating the SPACE that is to be filled.

As we walk through these days, I want you to try to imagine that you do not yet know what is to come of this space.

Throughout these days, we begin to recognize small glimmers of purpose, but it will not be until later in the creation process that the full purpose of each space is recognized.

With day one we find that God begins by creating light and separating that light from the darkness.

This light and dark separation is the separation of night and day.

This is the time in the creation process that we start to recognized that God is operating in a pattern of days.

A face-value reading of the creation narrative will interpret the days of creation as 6 literal consecutive days; that is, the days of creation represent a normal week as we understand it.

There are many alternate views of how these days of creation are to be understood, but i believe that the scriptural evidence best supports a literal interpretation to the creation narrative.

Day two shows how God separated the waters of the earth from the waters above with a firmament or expanse.

We understand this expanse as the “lower heaven”; that is what we see when we look up into the sky.

The waters above can be understood as the clouds that hold water above the expanse until time for rain

With the completion of the separation of the waters below from the waters above with the firmament between, we have the 2nd day.

With the beginning of day 3, we see that God now separates the waters on earth by calling the dry land to appear.

This is the end of what we will consider as the creation of the SPACE that God will fill.

Within this day, God will give name to the waters that have been separated by land. He will call them seas.

Now, with the land, seas, and the sky, we see that God has completed the creation of the SPACE that He will now begin filling.

The preparation process is not ye complete though.

After creating the land, God then creates the seed yielding plants that will also begin the filling processes of creation.

Grass, herbs, fruit trees, and other vegetation are created on day 3.

With this creation, Gods has moved from the creation of the space to the filling of the space.

Space Filled

Day 4 of creation is a harken back to day 1.

In day 4 God gives deeper PURPOSE to the lights that were created in day 1.

Genesis 1:14 says that the lights in the firmament were to divide day from night and to be for signs, seasons, days, and years.

God made the greater light (the sun) to rule the day, and he made the lesser light (moon) to rule the night along with the stars.

God separated the light from the darkness using the greater and lesser lights. Even in the night, God provides light.

Day 5 is the day in which God brought forth the creatures of the sea and the flyers of the air.

Notice that day 5 is the day that God filled the SPACE that he created in day two.

In day 2, God separated the water and made the expanse, and in day 5, God made the air and sea animals.

Notice here that God first initiates His plan for reproduction.

God established His plan for His creation to expand and grow even in the beginning.

Each one according to their kind.

We now see that God has established some boundaries for His purposes in the reproductive cycle.